How short-form videos could transform your social media content this year

It’s hard to look at social media these days and not notice the prevalence of short, punchy videos endlessly rolling through your feed. Whether it’s cute puppies, slick dance moves or cooking demonstrations, these videos are capturing the attention of millions of viewers every minute. And this translates to a BIG opportunity for marketing.

If you’re not using short-form video to promote your brand right now, then you should be. Simple as that. But don’t plunge in without a plan. Be strategic in your approach and you could see some spectacular results.

To help you understand more about this content form and how it could work for you, we’ve put together a few of the questions we hear most often:

What exactly is short form video?

As the name suggests, these are short duration videos that run from as little as 15 seconds up to several minutes (although, generally speaking, the shorter the better). They’re housed on a range of social channels including TikTok, Instagram Stories and YouTube Shorts (which currently attracts over 1.5 billion viewers every month).

But the opportunities and audiences for this content are constantly growing and it’s also well worth considering placing content on Facebook Stories and LinkedIn Stories, which are both gathering steam, as well as Instagram Reels and Snapchat Spotlight.

Why is it so effective?

Short-form content ticks so many of the boxes – starting with viewer engagement. It’s really easy for audiences to consume quickly and to digest easily, so we see impressively high engagement levels that often translate into strong conversion rates. If you use the content cleverly and integrate with your website, it can also be a powerful tool for driving website traffic.

What sort of content works best in short form video?

Whichever platform and length of content you choose, one thing remains the same: the content needs to be good. By this we mean compelling, engaging and worthy of the viewer’s attention: Think high-quality storytelling that is both interesting and useful. In a heavily crowded marketplace, you really need to stand out, so short-form video content must be short and sweet and super punchy.

Time really is of the essence here, so focus on essentials. Pick one key idea for the video and focus entirely on this. Don’t try to tell the whole history of your brand in 30 seconds, unless you have a genuinely interesting way to do this. Instead create a series of short videos that each spotlight a different point.

Never forget to include a CTA at the end of the video (such as “Shop now” or “Visit our website”) so that your viewers know exactly what to do once they’ve finished watching and are, in that moment, engaged with your brand.

And don’t worry if you don’t think you have enough video content to be effective. One of the great joys of short form content is that it’s so adaptable and so much of your existing content could be repurposed and repackaged as punchy little bite-sized morsels, if approached in the right way.

What’s the future for short-form video?

This is a content ‘trend’ you need to embrace as soon as possible because it’s still very much on the rise. Audiences and marketers both love it because it’s easy to produce and easy to consume.

Going forward, we’ll be seeing an increased emphasis on authenticity in brand videos, which often comes through user-generated content and influencer ads. This is just a natural extension of reviews. Having real customers talking honestly about why they love your brand is so much more powerful than any marketing content you could create.

This authenticity will also be seen in more behind-the-scenes content. Show customers how your business works and how your products are created in entertaining little video bites and the bond of trust will increase, leading to higher sales. This is also true of educational videos and FAQs, where you speak directly to customer queries and concerns about your product or service.

It's also important to consider accessibility by adding subtitles and text overlay, as people are increasingly watching videos without sound and on the run, and think about taking part in one of the many viral challenges regularly going around as a way of tapping into new audiences.

What’s next?

This might seem like a lot to consider, but making a move into short-form video can be transformative for your brand. Our team here at Awaken are passionate and knowledgeable about this content form and we would love to help you understand it better, to assess your current content library and strategise ways to leverage it, or produce brand-new compelling brand content.

Get in touch with us and let’s start a conversation.